Up-Front with David Anzuelo ('89) and Megan Marshall ('07)

I’m a press intern at O & M Co. and LAByrinth Theater Company in Manhattan. I was assigned to research LAB company members in our upcoming reading series, Live Nude Plays, and found David’s resume on IMDB. I immediately e-mailed CSF to see if he was on the radar, and of course I was the only one in the dark about this guy. I decided to hunt down David Anzuelo (like Theseus hunts down Asterion) and get the scoop on his latest projects as well as what CSF was like when I was a toddler.

I found David in Rochester, NY, at the Geva Theatre Center doing Frost/Nixon by Peter Morgan. It closes November 16, at which point he’ll return to the city for the reading series on November 18 and 19, which features his play, Minotaur: A Romance! Here’s the description: Leather-bars: black hole physics. Matthew Shepard: Pablo Picasso. Country-rock music: the Minotaur of Greek myth. This is an unapologetically homo-erotic play with original music that demands answers about love, honor and death. Full disclosure: I did this interview by phone because Rochester is four hours away by train. I had to type vigorously in order to keep up with David’s genius. When I asked him to look over the interview to make sure I wasn’t lying about him he said, “You can lie about me. I’ll go with it. If someone says to me ‘David I thought you died,’ I’ll say, ‘I did. I’m back.’”

MM: How’s it going in Rochester?
DA: It’s starting to pick up — it started off rocky. The tech was tedious. There’s a lot of video because of the Nixon interviews. I was also in the regional premiere at the Repertory Theatre of St. Louis.

That’s cool that you got to go to St. Louis.
Yeah, I’d never been there. I’ve seen a lot of the country and a lot Europe too, thanks to work.

Before you became the jetsetter you are now, you were in the Land of Enchantment. Why did you attend College of Santa Fe?
I was in Santa Fe for a summer program with the British American Theatre Institute. At the closing meeting for the program they asked us what our future plans were. I was at the university in El Paso but wasn’t happy there, so they asked why I didn’t go to CSF. They sent me to John Weckesser to set up an audition. He gave me a scholarship, but that wasn’t enough, so he set me up with work-study and I sold my car.

So you remember John Weckesser? He remembers you. Good things only of course.
Well, we’re friends on Facebook.

You’re friends with John on Facebook?! He’s not my friend on Facebook!
John and I got along. He got me there and kept me there. Phil Chapman was my acting teacher, one of the best teachers I ever had, even though we had a rocky relationship. He was always yelling at me! Stormy, very exciting CSF did a lot of things for me. They sent me to the Martha Graham School in New York City, and I did a workshop with the Paul Taylor Dance Company in Houston. When I was at CSF, I worked on movie sets around Santa Fe as an extra. They would close the school and all the kids got to work, and then we came back and talked about what it was like.

What was the first movie you did?
And God Created Woman [1988]. The remake with Rebecca De Mornay, Vincent Spano and Frank Langella.

Tell me about deciding to move to New York City. A lot of students graduate and move here, and it’s always interesting to hear from someone with experience talk about the decision. It’s a hindsight thing.
All the people I wanted to work with were here: La Mama ETC, Ping Chong, any of the Warhol crowd. I wanted to be part of the nightclub scene; it was very exciting in the mid ‘80s. I felt that the East Coast had everything. I got to New York on July 1, 1989, and by July 5 I’d booked my first job — singing waiter at Spirit of New Jersey, a cruise line, and booked a five-week carnival tour as a singer/dancer. I was “Young Elvis of the Midway.” We opened for Reba McEntire and The Gatlin Brothers, among others. That was my job for three summers. We did nine performances a day, bus and truck tour, $100/a day, which was a lot of money back then. That rest of the year I worked for La Mama ETC, training five hours a day, five days a week — for over a year — for a Butoh performance. I booked my first TV job within a year, a miniseries produced by Michael Mann. I worked with Tom O’Horgan, the original director of Hair; together we revived La Mama Company with my fellow company member, life-long friend and director of Minotuar: A Romance!, Lou Moreno.

Okay, we have to talk about your many appearances on “Law & Order.”
My first “Law & Order” was something like 1996; I played a wannabe carjacker who discovers a dead body in a car. This was the “regular” “Law & Order” with Benjamin Bratt and Jerry Orbach, who was so nice to me. I was on regular “Law & Order” four times, “Criminal Intent” once, and “SVU” twice. On “SVU,” Christopher Meloni had a back injury and was real grouchy. The second time, I worked with Mariska Hargitay and she was so sweet to me. I’m on a TV show this season, and I try to make at least one movie a year.

Tell me about LAB.
LAByrinth [Theatre Company] emerged out of the INTAR Lab in 1992 — LAB stood for Latino Actors Based. We used to meet at an unused INTAR rehearsal space, which was rat-infested and freezing but we got to be there for free and they let us do whatever we wanted. At the beginning it was mostly theater games and writing in a supportive atmosphere for predominantly Latino actors. Within a year, everybody decided to produce some of the things that had been written. We had a few residencies here and there, and then we were invited to The Public Theater.

Your resume is quite extensive. Can you tell me about your favorite project thus far?
It’s hard to say. As a director, writer, actor? How about “transformative”?

Okay, “transformative.”
Merchant of Venice, directed by Peter Sellars, in 1994. It was an international tour with other LAB company members, including John Ortiz. I was originally hired as an understudy for the male parts and then got moved to assistant director once John Ortiz told Peter I was interested in directing. That is where we gained members Philip Seymour Hoffman, Portia Johnson and Joe Quintero. We went to Europe, Chicago (The Goodman Theatre), and New York, playing to sold-out houses. There was a movie for BBC, It Is Now Our Time. Working with Peter Sellars brought me to an awareness of my social responsibility as an artist. It was post-Rodney King, and [Sellars] taught me that classic texts could be applied in a contemporary context. Race is still such a huge issue in the U.S. Before, I wanted to work and create but didn’t have applied focus. My social responsibility totally informs and affects everything I do now.

When did you start writing?
I wrote in grade school. I wanted to be writer before anything. I remember wanting to be on journalism staff, but my English teacher said I wasn’t qualified. In class, we had an assignment to write about the Titanic. I wrote from the point of view of an Irishman, brogue and everything! Imagine an 11-year-old Mexican kid writing about this Irishman. My teacher was blown away. She invited me to join the newspaper; I said “no thanks.” I figured I was better off without them. In 1996, I did Queen Latina & Her Power Posse, a comic book for the stage. It was a weekly serial and it ran for six months. It sold out every show. I would write it and then we’d rehearse it in one day and put it up that weekend. It was crazy kamikaze theatre and it had music. I wrote for the company members. Someone would say “okay, this week I want to be a villain,” and I would write that part for them. The villains were based on the seven deadly sins. This was is the gist: soapbox for social issues; heavy doses of cheesy humor; sexy trendy jokes; social commentary on the time. That’s when I started writing in earnest.

I enjoyed your play. At first, I thought it was bizarre, but now…well it’s still bizarre, but familiar at the same time. Once I realized that love story is the myth of the minotaur, and that they had to complete the myth in order to live on — I thought that was really beautiful. What was the initial reaction of company when they read it at the intensive?
Extremely emotional and loving and supportive and exited. I got a real sense of empowerment from it. People were crying, people were turned on, people were exited. People who I admire were saying things to me that I think about them, which was surreal. I recognized that it was powerful. I am the only out gay company member; my politics are very strong. All I knew is this may be the only shot I could get. [The story] is about divine love and the redeeming power of love, and gay men taking back their own names and place in the world, not succumbing to being second-class status or “abominations of nature.” If we don’t make ourselves men and show the world, we end up getting tied to fences and left for dead. Matthew Shepherd was a really brave kid, only 21, and a small guy. When he hired a cab he told the driver “I am a gay man, going to gay bar. Will you take me?” This young kid was searching for a connection and had to go to a whole other town to get it. I have connected his courage to the myth of the minotaur.

How have you developed or changed the play since its first reading?
I’m finding that the interdisciplinary aspects, especially video, need to be downplayed. In my early work, video was a large part of my aesthetic. When I started writing, I lost an appreciation for a power of the Word. A lot of pieces had no text, just movement and visuals. Going back to the bible and creation mythologies, it always begins with the Word. I can create images more effectively through the language. Now, video can be supportive as opposed to integral. LAB understands the way my aesthetic works and that it demands a little more than actors holding scripts at a reading. In order for the proper spell to be cast it has to be sung and performed. Composer Cristian Amigo will be playing and I will be singing. The actors were wonderful in dealing with the myth. Myth is bigger than life so the acting style has to be heightened, though it does have moments of cinematic acting. Another thing I learned from Peter Sellars is that everything can coexist in harmony. When dealing with anachronisms, there shouldn’t be strict laws. So, sometimes it has qualities of film, punk, church, opera, and/or boxing matches. I have a short attention span. If I lose interest, I’ll bet the audience already has.

Will we see more plays authored by you in the future?
Yes, I’m working on one right now.

Do you have any advice for recent grads or incoming freshmen?
Freshmen: Work a lot harder than you can imagine you’d have to. Try to visit whatever city you think you might move to in the future. Maintain good relationships with teachers. Try not to waste too many brains cells on drugs and alcohol, because you’re going to need them when you’re finished with school. Alumni: Don’t ever underestimate networking. Do as much as you can — don’t get caught up in taking classes. You’ll learn way more by just doing it than you can in 15 years of acting classes. Be proactive. Even if you get an agent, you’re still going to have to hustle, write, direct, produce. Let me get on my soapbox again. At this time in history, more than ever, America is in need of strong healthy artists. Concentrate on being a strong representative American artist. And if you ever move to New York, feel free to contact me.

 

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